Chess
Notes

Edward Winter

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5134.
Barcelona, 1929

This illustration from Barcelona, 1929, containing many
little-known portraits, was published on page 182 of the November
1929 American Chess Bulletin. Are readers able to trace a
better/clearer copy?

5135. The Dragon Variation

Page 148 of Kings, Commoners and Knaves and page 293 of Chess
Facts and Fables discussed the origins of the term ‘Dragon
Variation’ in the Sicilian Defence, and the earliest citation we
have found comes only from the mid-1920s, on page 43 of the
February-March 1925 Tijdschrift van den Nederlandschen
Schaakbond. After 1 e4 c5 2 d4 cxd4 3 Nf3 Nc6 4 Nxd4 Nf6 5
Nc3 d6 6 Be2 g6, H. Weenink referred to ‘De “drakevariant” van
den Siciliaan’.

Pre-1925 citations are sought, and in the meantime we quote an
author who considered the Dragon Variation to be a line for White.
The game below was annotated on pages 52-53 of Les échecs par
la joie by Aristide Gromer (Brussels, 1939), and we give
only the notes relevant to the ‘Dragon’ name:

Have other writers used ‘Dragon Variation’ for the pawn advance
g2-g4 in the Sicilian Defence? We wonder too how well known the
term was in any context during Gromer’s career. For instance,
pages 571-572 of L’Echiquier, February 1927 had a French
translation of Kmoch’s annotations to a game (Kostić v Canal,
Meran, 1926) which began 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 g6;
the note to Black’s fourth move included a reference to ‘La
“Drachen” variante choisie ici’, implying unawareness that
use was being made of a German term for the Dragon Variation.

Aristide Gromer (born in 1909) was discussed on pages 175-177 of
Chess Facts and Fables, and we still have no information
about him from the 1940s onwards. The picture below was published
opposite page 80 of El Ajedrez Español, November 1934.

Aristide Gromer

5136. An interview
with Gunsberg

Joost van Winsen (Silvolde, the Netherlands) submits an interview
with Gunsberg which was published in the Bradford Observer
Budget of 28 July 1888. The copy currently available is
imperfect, and a couple of the dates in the extensive extracts
below are marked as uncertain:

‘A Chess Champion Interviewed

Mr I. Gunsberg, who is one of the
greatest of living chessplayers, was in Bradford a few days ago,
and ... one of our representatives waited upon him, and obtained
in conversation the following interesting particulars of his
life’s history. Mr Gunsberg is a native of Hungary, and only 33
years of age. When a mere boy of 11 his father taught him the
elements of chess, that being at a time when the Hungarian Chess
School was represented by such players as Fähndrich, Englisch,
Kolisch and Dr Noa. Shortly afterwards young Gunsberg went to live
in Paris, where at the Café de la Régence – a renowned chess
resort – he encountered the strongest players in the capital. He,
of course, received great odds from the recognized masters, such
as Rosenthal, Steinitz and Kolisch, but against amateurs he was
already able to hold his own, though at this time under 12 years
of age. Four years later he was considered “a pawn and two moves”
player; that is to say, he received the odds of pawn and two moves
from the masters. In 1867 he returned to Pesth, his native town,
and proved himself to be as good a chessplayer as any of the
Hungarians, Schwarz, Englisch and Fähndrich excepted.

The year 1876 [?] found Gunsberg in
England, a frequenter of the London chess resorts, and a
formidable antagonist. ... Then he disappeared from the chess
resorts with unaccountable suddenness, and little was seen of him
for upwards of three years. [There followed a brief account of
Gunsberg’s involvement with Mephisto.]

The mysterious element in Gunsberg’s
doings having ultimately been demolished, Gunsberg reappeared in
the public arena. Very shortly after he resumed public play he
challenged so redoubtable an opponent as Blackburne to a match,
and a contest was arranged in which the Englishman conceded the
odds of two games, and won by a single game. The same year
Gunsberg won the second prize in the City of London Handicap, and
three years later he gained the first honours in the same annual
competition. At this time – in 1884 [?] – it was beginning to be
recognized that Gunsberg was no mere second-rate master. [The
newspaper item then discussed Gunsberg’s relations with Bradford
and other events in which he had participated.]

Questioned as to his relations with
Steinitz, Mr Gunsberg said he had played one game against Steinitz
when the latter was giving a simultaneous performance in 1877, and
that he (Gunsberg) lost. He added that he considered Mr Steinitz
undoubtedly the strongest living exponent of the game. He should
very much like to play him a match, but not until his play got a
little more mature. Gunsberg frankly admits that his weakness as a
chessplayer is impetuosity in attack, and he observed that when he
did undertake to play the champion he should stand a good chance,
the natural inference from that statement being that he means to
prepare himself for the encounter. Steinitz is not exactly
notorious for friendliness of feeling toward other noted
chessplayers. Regarding this point Gunsberg says he met Steinitz
frequently for years, and was on friendly terms with him, but he
doubts whether the champion would still feel inclined to be very
amiable to him, though his own feelings towards him are unaltered.

The conversation turned at length upon
the forthcoming International Congress at Bradford. Judging from
the great variety of events, he thinks this congress will be the
finest provincial chess meeting ever held. Up to the present time,
he said, only Germany has been able to arrange successful
provincial gatherings of so extensive a kind. In no other country
have chessplayers ever succeeded in having a meeting of such
importance outside the capital. He declined to prophesy as to the
probable winner of the Masters’ Tournament, but has sufficient
confidence in himself to express the opinion that his chances are
as good as those of anybody else. He is in very fair form at
present, but, as everybody knows, is very liable to sudden
physical depression.

Speaking generally of the uses and
effects of chessplaying, Gunsberg said that, if practised in
season and in proper measure, it was the best of all pastimes,
even for men whose profession greatly exercised the mind, always
provided that they did not neglect physical exercise. In fact, he
continued, it seems that those engaged in hard brain work require
additional brain work as a recreation, just as those engaged in
hard physical labour chiefly require manual exercise in their
pastimes. All that is necessary to constitute either mental or
physical recreation are change and interest. To attain perfection
as a chessplayer, Mr Gunsberg said a man must have a combination
of the qualities of physical vigour, strong imagination, logical
mind, patience, perseverance, industry and mind force, all of
which the game of chess developed to some extent. He believed that
in the degree in which any of those qualities are undeveloped or
lacking the play is weakened. Book knowledge he regards as not
absolutely necessary to success, for, whilst on the one hand it
gives the player the benefit of the accumulated experience of the
best students of the present and past age, on the other hand want
of it leads to more self-reliance and independence of thought.
Almost the same argument answers to the necessity of a good
memory. Mr Gunsberg admitted that he possessed neither of these
qualities. The possession of either or both of them would greatly
strengthen his play, but would also alter the style of it
considerably ...’

The following month Gunsberg won the Bradford tournament, ahead
of Mackenzie, von Bardeleben, Mason, Burn, Blackburne and Weiss.

5137. Further Gunsberg jottings

Pages 171-172 of the 30 July 1893 issue of Emanuel Lasker’s
magazine the London Chess Fortnightly quoted some remarks
about Gunsberg by Steinitz in the New York Tribune. The
context was a dispute over whether Lasker had a right to issue a
world championship challenge to Steinitz, and we give merely the
start of the latter’s salvo (which Lasker quoted approvingly):

‘Mr Gunsberg is not alone a chess
professor, but he also professes to be a philosopher of the
so-called “individualistic school”, and he has lectured and
written on doctrines which, if I may quote myself, are based on
the theory that “one man has rights, but two men have none”. When,
however, he applies his egoistic principles to chess affairs, he
finds that though he may be unique in the chess world he is not
alone in it. For instance, he seems to be possessed of the idea
that the championship of the world can only be at stake when he
himself is a party in a contest. Thus he played a match with
Chigorin for “the championship of the world”, and the whole chess
world laughed. He fought another for the title against myself in
which he virtually received the odds of the draw and played to
take advantage of the odds. The whole chess world might have
laughed if – he had won it ...’

We are still seeking information about the meeting between
Gunsberg and Capablanca depicted in the photograph below from page
497 of The Strand Magazine, May 1914 (C.N. 3785):

A further question is why Gunsberg’s forename was, during his
lifetime, so often given as J., rather than I. To quote just one
late example, the Marienbad, 1925 tournament referred to ‘J.
Gunsberg’.

On the other hand, the initial I. was, fortunately, used in the
acrostic poem by W. Williams published on page 275 of the Chess
Player’s Chronicle, 29 November 1890:

5138. Who? (C.N. 5131)

This is George Allen (1808-1876), in a picture published opposite
page 22 of Chess in Philadelphia by Gustavus C. Reichhelm
(Philadelphia, 1898).

5139. Feedback to a magazine

From page 515 of the December 1973 BCM:

‘If, in the magazine, we were to
remove every item which some reader dislikes, we may well be left
with two staples – and then we’re certain someone has already
complained about their quality.’

5140.
Tartakower/Cartier (C.N. 4331)

Further to G.H. Diggle’s reference to Savielly Tartakower in C.N.
4331, Hassan Roger Sadeghi (Lausanne, Switzerland) asks if more
information is available about Tartakower’s service in the
Fighting French Forces during the Second World War under the
pseudonym ‘Cartier’.

Savielly Tartakower

We offer some notes, beginning with a paragraph by Harry Golombek
on page iii of his Translator’s Foreword to the second volume of
Tartakower’s Best Games:

‘It might perhaps surprise those who
do not know him that at the age of 53 the learned doctor was
actively engaged in the battle against Hitler and that, after
having been decorated for gallantry in the First World War whilst
fighting for Austria, he should now have been just as hotly and
bravely engaged on what might be termed the other side. But he has
always regulated his behaviour on strict principles of right and
wrong. Nothing will ever deter him from embarking on a course
which he thinks to be his duty.

Coming through the war unscathed, he
resumed his chess activities with undiminished vigour.’

In that source, as well as on page 67 of Chess Treasury of
the Air by Terence Tiller (Harmondsworth, 1966), Golombek
related his wartime meeting with Tartakower in England. The
following appeared in the Tiller book:

‘In 1941 I was stationed in an
artillery unit in Northern Ireland, and my service there was
relieved by a weekend trip to Nottingham where I was due to play
on top board for the British against the Allied Forces. I
anticipated an easy victory, as my opponent was an unknown
Lieutenant Cartier of the Free French Army. I had the delightful
disappointment of discovering that le lieutenant Cartier
was no less a person than my old friend Dr Tartakower. When France
fell, he had made his way to England via Oran and a British
battleship; and there he was, looking just as quizzical as ever,
incongruously attired in British battle-dress. Though by now
approaching his middle fifties, he was as gallant and determined
as ever in his fight for what he believed to be right.’

The chess match was played at the Borough Club, Nottingham on 15
November 1941, as reported on pages 305-306 of the December 1941 BCM,
and the score of the game between ‘2nd/Lt. G. Cartier’ and ‘Bdr H.
Golombek’ was supplied. The BCM wrote:

‘It is divulging no secret to say
that 2nd/Lt. “G. Cartier” is the pseudonym of one who is
universally loved and admired wherever chess is played.’

Below is the complete page 306:

In all, the BCM published about a dozen games by
Lieutenant Cartier during the War. The match described by G.H.
Diggle took place in London on 22 April 1944 and was reported on
pages 107-109 of the May 1944 BCM. His opponent was G.
Wood. The pseudonym ‘Cartier’ was no secret; for instance, page
268 of the December 1942 BCM referred to ‘Lt. G. Cartier
of the Fighting French, better known in the chess world as Dr
Tartakower, the great international’.

We still seek substantiation of the claim that Tartakower was
several times ‘dropped by parachute behind enemy lines on secret
missions’ (see page 331 of Kings, Commoners and Knaves).
More generally, what else is known about Tartakower’s activities
during the Second World War?

5141. Morphy the composer

On pages 17-18 of Paul Morphy The Pride and Sorrow of Chess
(New York, 1976) Lawson’s treatment of the famous Morphy two-mover
covered the following points:

In a letter (date not mentioned) to G. Reichhelm, who was the
chess editor of the Philadelphia Sunday Times, General
John Tillson discussed a chess problem composed by Morphy before
attaining the age of ten.

In Morphy’s Games of Chess P.W. Sergeant called it
‘Morphy’s Alleged Problem’ and noted that Alain C. White had
cast doubt on its authenticity.

Mate in two

After giving the problem, as above, Lawson quoted Charles
Maurian in the New Orleans Times Democrat of 12 October
1884. Maurian was inclined to believe that it had not been
composed by Morphy.

Lawson then stated: ‘Unquestionably it is Morphy’s chess
problem and his only one.’ He pointed out that on 10 June 1856
Ernest Morphy sent it to the New York Clipper, where it
was published on 28 June. In addition, Sam Loyd gave it in the
New York Musical World of 30 April 1859.

It is worth casting an eye over earlier attempts to sort out the
facts about the two-mover. Alain C. White wrote on page 157 of his
book The White Rooks (Stroud, 1910):

‘It would be curious to know the
origin of this little trifle. I have not traced it back further
than 1888, when H. Lehner the editor of the Lesehalle
referred to it as the only problem composed by Morphy. Seeing the
wonderfully subtle mates which Morphy was able to announce in his
actual games, the production if genuine is also disappointing.’

Sergeant quoted most of that passage on page 347 of Morphy’s
Games of Chess (London, 1916), and on page 110 of his
complementary book Morphy Gleanings (London, 1932) he
added:

‘On the authority of General John
Tillson of Quincy, Illinois, this was a Morphy problem,
composed by Paul before he was ten (!), and was shown to him by
Ernest Morphy before his nephew made his great reputation. The
problem was first published, apparently, by G.C. Reichhelm in the
Philadelphia Times in 1887, which is earlier by a year than
A.C. White’s first trace of it. It was republished in the Philadelphia
Inquirer as late as 18 February 1920 (with the pieces
transposed to the king’s side), and was prefaced by a reference to
General Tillson’s statement.’

On page 11 Sergeant specified the chronology: after Reichhelm
gave the problem in the Philadelphia Times in 1887 Tillson
wrote to him about Morphy’s young age at the time of composing it.
It would seem, though, that Sergeant’s source was merely the
(1920) republication of the story, and that he did not have the Philadelphia
Times of 1887. Can any reader provide that earlier text?

On page 327 of his book Lawson discussed a problem which ‘has
often been falsely ascribed to Paul Morphy’. He reported that it
was, in fact, by E.B. Cook, and ‘was first published under the
initials “E.B.C.” by C.H. Stanley on 23 October 1852 in the New
York Albion. Dr H. Keidanz published it as number 15 in The
Chess Compositions of E.B. Cook.’

Mate in eight

Sergeant mentioned on page 347 of his book that the composer was
Cook, not Morphy:

‘Another [problem] which was
attributed to him in the Nuova Rivista degli Scacchi,
July-August 1884, was afterwards traced to the late Eugene B.
Cook, of Hoboken, being the well-known “Circus” Fantasy.’

In a later edition of the book (1919) Sergeant revised his
comment as follows:

‘Another [problem], in eight moves,
published as Morphy’s in the Chess Player’s Magazine,
August 1864, is said to have been really composed by the late
Eugene B. Cook.’

We add that the eight-mover was often seen ascribed to Morphy
after his death, examples being page 66 of the Columbia Chess
Chronicle, 1 October 1889 and the front page of the first
number of the Chess Review, September 1892, as well as
page 97 of the February 1893 issue. However, after it was given on
page 83 of the April 1922 American Chess Bulletin Alain C.
White reacted with a letter to the problem editor of the Bulletin,
H.W. Barry. It was published on page 112 of the May-June 1922
issue:

Can anything further be discovered as to how Morphy’s name became
attached to Cook’s composition?

5142.
A
column
by Marshall?

John Blackstone (Las Vegas, NV, USA) writes:

‘On page A8 of the Los Angeles Times of 13 November
1927 a column called “Chess” by Clif Sherwood stated:

“United States champion Frank J. Marshall, in his chess
department of the November issue of the Sportsman,
gives the following ...”

What, if anything, is known about that magazine?’

5143. Chess and bridge (C.N.s 4462 &
4828)

To our brief list of authors of books on both chess and bridge
(G. Abrahams, A. Chéron, Em. Lasker and J.C.H. Macbeth) we add a
fifth name: Philip Anderton. In addition to Bridge in 20
Lessons, Contract Bridge Simplified and Play
Bridge he brought out A Basic Chess (London, 1955).

A short work with an ungainly title, A Basic Chess was
notable for its unusual notation. To quote a gamelet from page 32:
(1) 26-36 75-55 (2) 27-47 84-48 mate.

Is information available about Philip Anderton?

5144.
Tsar Nicholas II

Books continue to claim, without substantiation, that the title
of ‘grandmaster’ was first conferred by Tsar Nicholas II at St
Petersburg, 1914. The matter was discussed on pages 315-316 of Kings,
Commoners and Knaves and pages 177-178 of A Chess
Omnibus, and we have still found no earlier occurrence of
the story than in an article by Robert Lewis Taylor in The New
Yorker, 15 June 1940.

To pose a broader question: do 1914 sources contain references to
Tsar Nicholas II in connection with any aspect of the St
Petersburg tournament?

5145. Gamesmanship

From pages 24-25 of Not Only Chess by Gerald Abrahams
(London, 1974):

‘... Cold-blooded gamesman-planning is rare. But I have one
pretty example. At my first British Championship, [at Ramsgate]
in 1929, a friend of mine – who is a magnificent analyst and
celebrated in the chess world – found himself in a very bad
position. But there was a way out. Given that his opponent (a
very strong player) did not see the threat, it was possible,
with a series of sacrifices, to achieve stalemate. But he had to
include in his play a clearly inadequate move, which would
inevitably warn his opponent. After all, one plays chess on the
assumption that the opponent sees everything. (That is why the
word “trap” is not a good chess term.) But my friend devised a
psychological trap. He sat and looked at the board with a
despairing face until he was well and truly in time trouble.
Then he fumblingly made the crucial moves. His opponent, tempted
to a little gamesmanship himself, was playing very quickly.
Quick came the erroneous capture. Even quicker came the series
of sacrifices and, while the flag was tottering, stalemate
supervened. Now could he have improved on things in the
following way: touched the piece, taken his hand away, and let
himself be compelled to move the piece at random? No, he had
thought of that, but dismissed it as sharp practice.’

Abrahams then gave the relevant position:

‘Time control at move 40. At move 31 Black has played R-Kt6, a
good move, because, if either rook guards the bishop, RxB wins.’

Abrahams did not name the players, but the position after White’s
37th move was given on page 346 of the September 1929 BCM.
W.A. Fairhurst was White against T.H. Tylor.

For similar deeds, see the entry for ‘Cunning, gamesmanship and
skulduggery’ in the Factfinder.

5146. An assessment of Lasker’s personality

John Hilbert (Amherst, NY, USA) quotes from pages 130-131 of the
Chess Weekly, 18 September 1909:

‘Speaking of the peculiarities of chessplayers, the man who
writes the biography of the World’s Chess Champion will face a
Herculean task. Our friend Dr Lasker is a most interesting
psychological study, and in all that has been written about his
personality we have never seen anything even approaching the
truth. Sharing the failings of many great men, Dr Lasker
measures his capacities in all lines of endeavor by his
phenomenal genius in one. He prides himself more on his business
abilities and on his knowledge of things miscellaneous than he
does on chess, wherein he is admittedly pre-eminent. Tell him
that he has an equal in chess and he will modestly admit it, or
perhaps mildly debate the question; but tell him that he has an
equal in philosophy, in the sciences – or in pinochle – and you
may hurt or offend him. His thoughts, sometimes inconsistent,
often impractical, but always unique, reflect a vortex of
diverse personalities – An Aristotle, A Claudius, A Nero and a
George Peabody, rolled into one and inspired to play chess.’

Front cover of the 18 September
1909 issue

Noting that Magnus Smith was listed as the ‘Editor-in-Chief’ of
the Chess Weekly on the (inside) mast-head, the names of
Nugent and Napier having been removed therefrom the previous
month, our correspondent comments:

‘I think that the Smith paragraph is well done and features
perhaps the most incisive words written about Lasker’s
personality by anyone on this side of the Atlantic, certainly
for the time.’

5147. Zugzwang

Our feature article on Zugzwang
remarks that the word ‘was not commonly found in English-language
chess literature prior to the publication of My System [in
1929]’. Here we add that a rare, early explanation of Zugzwang
occurred in an (uncharacteristically florid) article by Hermann
Helms entitled ‘Applying the Straitjacket in Chess’ which was
originally published in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and was
reproduced on pages 65-66 of the March 1927 American Chess
Bulletin. It concerned Capablanca’s celebrated victory (with
the Caro-Kann Defence) over Nimzowitsch at New York, 1927, and
Helms commented:

‘It was an artistic gem of the chessboard. Nimzowitsch is an
artist. No-one appreciates beauty or perfection more than he.
His own artistry has often dumbfounded opponents less skillful.
But against the champion – that’s something different again.

Once more, that straitjacket; that is, the chessic kind. ...
His little army was precisely as large as Capablanca’s. But he
was cramped and he ached for elbow room. As to space and
mobility he was much restricted. No matter which way he looked
there was restraint. The prospect was decidedly irksome.

Very expressive is the German term of “Zugzwang”. It
covers the case exactly. Literally translated it means
move-coercion. The player thus unfortunately placed may be said
to be position-bound. Gradually all his available moves are
exhausted; that is, the moves that count at all. Then he faces
the inevitable.

... Some move must be made. With that very move he signs his
own death warrant ...

So it was with Nimzowitsch. He was the fly in the net.
Capablanca played the part of spider. The Dane was already
enmeshed. He made a brave show of resistance. The more he
struggled the more hopeless became his plight. The Cuban looked
pleased. On an occasion like this he fairly beams. His
countenance yesterday radiated delight.’

5148. Counter-attack (C.N. 5090)

C.N. 5090 discussed the origins of the dictum ‘Counter-attack is
the best form of defence’. We quoted ‘La contre-attaque est
une excellente manière de se défendre’ on page 51 of Nouveau
manuel illustré du jeu des échecs by J.A. de Rivière (Paris,
1892), noting that, since it was not the first edition of the
book, it might well be possible to trace the idea further back.

Vasco Resende (Le Mans, France) now confirms that the identical
passage appeared in the original edition (undated, but published
in Paris in 1860 or 1861).

5149. Pictures of Labourdonnais (C.N.
5128)

Below is an extract from Worlds of Chess Champions, a
booklet issued by the Cleveland Public Library in October 2003:

As regards the illustration, it may be recalled that C.N. 3397
(see page 287 of Chess Facts and Fables) quoted the
following passage about Labourdonnais by Sam Loyd on page 1884 of
the Scientific American Supplement, 6 April 1878:

‘It is not generally known that a plaster cast was taken from
his features at the time of his death and was brought to this
country, and is at present in the possession of Mr Eugene B.
Cook, the distinguished problemist, who prizes it most highly
and takes peculiar pride in showing the stray locks of hair and
whiskers that still adhere to the plaster.’

5150. Morphy portrait

The following page of Worlds of Chess Champions has a
good portrait of Paul Morphy, although presented in reverse. It is
reproduced correctly here:

5151. Chess and bridge (C.N. 5143)

Carsten Hansen (Bayonne, NJ, USA) reports that the chess author
Svend Novrup has also written books on bridge. Below is the front
cover of a volume published in Copenhagen in 1971:

5152.
Grandmaster

Little-known nineteenth-century occurrences of the term
‘grandmaster’ are always welcome. Robert John McCrary (Columbia,
SC, USA) forwards one from page 324 of the Chess Player’s
Chronicle, 1854:

‘Many a player can conduct a game without the board coolly and
steadily, but who, save De la Bourdonnais, under such
circumstances, invented attacks profound in conception,
brilliant in execution, and enduring upon analysis? Who but the
Chess Grand-Master could have contested a game without the board
against a player like Boncourt, with the remotest chance of
success?’

5153. Der Schachautomat

Concerning the book itself, we note from the dust-jacket of the
English edition, The Chess Machine (New York, 2007), that
‘the rights have been sold in more than 20 countries’.

5154. Gunsberg portrait

Relatively early pictures of Isidor Gunsberg are uncommon, and we
were glad to find the one below in Hans von Minckwitz’s column on
page 21 of the Illustrirte Zeitung, 5 July 1890:

5155. Blackburne and Kasparyan

An attempt is made here to progress with an unresolved matter
from page 201 of Kings, Commoners and Knaves, and we
therefore begin by quoting in full the relevant part of our text:

Middle-game combinations can also be the subject of
duplication, but here too one must be wary, since chess
chroniclers often write n’importe quoi. On page 39 of
the March 1992 Europe Echecs, Sylvain Zinser asserted
that the following position had arisen in ‘Blackburne v Gifford,
England 1874’:

The finish is given as 1 Qxc6+ Kxc6 2 Ne5+ Kc5 3 Nd3+ Kd4 4
Kd2, and mate next move by 5 c3 is unavoidable. But this
position bears an uncanny resemblance to the following, widely
published in chess literature:

The question is why Zinser (and only Zinser, to our present
knowledge) ascribed the 1 Qxc6+ combination to Blackburne, and now
we may have the makings of an explanation. Below are pages 98-99
of The Middle Game in Chess by Reuben Fine (New York,
1952):

The Blackburne and Kasparyan positions are presented by Fine side
by side, which may have resulted in his reference to
‘Blackburne-Gifford’ being misread as relating to diagram 154,
instead of 153.

That still leaves two discrepancies, however. Firstly, whereas
Fine stated that the game was played in the Hague (which is
confirmed by, inter alia, page 154 of P. Anderson Graham’s
book on Blackburne), Zinser placed the game in England. Secondly,
Black’s king’s-side units in Fine’s diagram are omitted by Zinser.
It is, of course, possible that these divergences were introduced
elsewhere by another writer (i.e. after Fine and before Zinser).

We still lack definitive information about the Kasparyan
position, which has been published over the years with varying
details, though never, it seems, with the full game-score. Is a
good, solid source from the 1930s available?

5156. H. Gifford

Biographical information on H. Gifford is scarce. He was a
participant in, for instance, the Paris, 1878 tournament and
appears in the group photograph on page 38 of A Picture
History of Chess by Fred Wilson (New York, 1981). Below is
another of his games against Blackburne. It was played at
Simpson’s Divan and is culled from page 153 of the Brooklyn
Chess Chronicle, 15 July 1887:

5157. Pawn ending

This ending is usually published in books with the caption
‘Fahrni-Alapin’ (see pages 42-43 of A Chess Omnibus), but
we are grateful to Anssi Korhonen (Helsinki) for pointing out that
the position appeared in Emanuel Lasker’s Common Sense in
Chess. Depending on the edition, the page numbers are
108-110, 108-109 or 126-127. The first of these references relates
to the original edition of 1896.

Lasker wrote:

‘White has two chances of winning, the one based on his passed
pawn, the other on the weakness of the black RP. The black K
occupies at present a position of advantage in regard to both.
This is changed by the following manoeuvre:

1 K-Q5 K-B 2 K-B4 K-Q 3 K-Q4 K-B 4 K-Q5 K-B2 5 K-B5.

Now the move is changed, and White wins easily; or

4...K-Q 5 K-Q6 K-B 6 P-B7 K-Kt2 7 K-Q7

and mates in a few more moves.’

5158. Pillsbury in the Washington Times

John Hilbert (Amherst, NY, USA) has been examining issues of the
Washington Times, which, together with many other US
publications of the period 1900-1910, are available on-line
courtesy of the Library
of Congress. Our correspondent writes:

‘There was a short-lived chess column in the Washington
Times that ran from 7 November 1903 to 30 April 1904.
Initially edited by W.B. Mundelle, it was taken over by F.
Edward Mitchell as from 12 March 1904, because Mundelle had
retired and moved to San Antonio, Texas for health reasons. On
page 8 of the 21 November 1903 issue the column gave this
forgotten game played at the Washington Chess Club:

In that blindfold display Pillsbury played simultaneously
eight games of chess (+5 –0 =3) and four of checkers (+0 –1
=3).

The same column gave the ending of the Pillsbury v Guthrie
draw, whose full score appeared (although only with the
heading “USA 1904”) on pages 273-274 of Jacques N. Pope’s book
on Pillsbury. That game occurred in a second display at the
Washington Chess Club on 14 November 1903 (19 chess games and
seven games of checkers, played simultaneously but not
blindfold).

That column of 21 November 1903 also included the scores of
two checkers games by Pillsbury, against F.E. Potts and Paul
F. Grove.

On page 3 of its 9 April 1905 issue the Washington
Times had a news story about Pillsbury entitled “Tragic
collapse
of a brilliant mind”. By way of example, the
first paragraph reads:

“When Harry Nelson Pillsbury, the American champion
chessplayer, one time champion of the world, and probably the
most marvelous trick chessplayer that ever lived, tried to
commit suicide in Philadelphia during a fit of insanity a few
days ago, he only fulfilled the fate which has been that of
nearly all of the great masters of the game. The tremendous
mental strain which they undergo in the great tournaments,
aided and abetted by excessive use of stimulants to keep them
keyed to the proper pitch, is too much for the human brain, no
matter how abnormally brilliant.”’

5159. Pillsbury checkers game

Below is the score of a game of checkers won by Pillsbury in
Washington on 14 November 1903, as mentioned in C.N. 5158:

For readers’ convenience we have converted the score from ‘11-15
22-18’, etc. to the algebraic notation.

5160. From Janowsky? (C.N.s 3494 & 3525)

Regarding Janowsky’s alleged use of ‘blind swine’ to describe two
rooks on the seventh rank, James Stripes (Spokane, WA, USA) points
out that the attribution appeared in V. Vuković’s book The Art
of Attack in Chess; see, for instance, page 73 of the 1993
edition published by Cadogan Chess.

Vuković gave this diagram with the caption ‘Blind swine’
and stated:

‘The pair of rooks which “grunt out check” on the seventh rank
but cannot get a sight of mate were once nicknamed “blind
swine” by Janowski.’

Our correspondent cites two games in which Janowsky could only
draw despite having his rooks on the seventh rank: his tenth
match-game against Showalter in New York, January 1899 (American
Chess Magazine, February 1899, pages 360-361) and his
first-round encounter with Marshall at New York, January 1913 (American
Chess Bulletin, March 1913, page 54).

5161.
Tarrasch
v
the Allies

This position gave rise to a famous move:

After 31 Bc7 Black resigned.

It is strange how often, nowadays, this game is merely labelled
‘Tarrasch v the Allies’, as if the identity of the losers were
unknown. They were D. Marotti, E. Napoli, de Simone and del
Giudice, as is shown by such sources as pages 120-121 of Deutsches
Wochenschach, 5 April 1914 and pages 180-182 of Schachjahrbuch
für
1914 II. Teil by L. Bachmann (Ansbach, 1914).

The four names were also given by Tarrasch when he annotated the
game (played at the Circolo Artistico in Naples on 9 March 1914)
in the Berliner Lokal Anzeiger; those annotations were
reproduced on pages 162-163 of La Stratégie, April 1914.
The names also appeared when the game was presented on pages
398-399 of Tarrasch’s book Die moderne Schachpartie
(Leipzig, 1924) and on pages 168-170 of Tarrasch’s
Schachzeitung, March 1934 (published after his death). In
these last two sources ‘Gindice’ was given instead of Giudice. The
strongest of the allies was Davide Marotti (1881-1940), who became
Italian champion in 1921.

5162. Romi/Romih

At the 1921 Italian championship, held in Viareggio, one of the
participants was M. Romi(h), and Javier Asturiano Molina (Murcia,
Spain) asks about the spelling of his name.

Our correspondent, Javier Asturiano Molina, comments that the
Romi/Romih spelling question is relevant to the well-known
‘spiritualist’ yarn about a game between Maróczy and Korchnoi,
widely discussed on the Internet and elsewhere. It may be recalled
that, as a test question, the ghost of Maróczy was purportedly
asked whether he recognized the name ‘Romi’. The answer that came
back was negative, although he did recall having, in 1930, an
opponent named ‘Romih’.

We note, though, that both ‘Romi’ and ‘Romih’ were used in chess
literature while Maróczy was alive, seemingly at random. Indeed,
Maróczy himself used both. To deal only with his victory over
Romi/Romih at San Remo, 1930, the following versions appeared in
Maróczy’s writings:

The start of Maróczy’s annotations
in Kagans Neueste Schachnachrichten, June 1930, pages
179-181.

From page 35 of Maróczy’s 1951
book A megnyitások elmélete.

5163. Blackburne and Kasparyan (C.N.s 5155
& 5156)

The above is reproduced from volume two of Taktika Moderního
Šachu by L. Pachman (Prague, 1964). See also page 76 of the
German edition (Moderne Schachtaktik, volume two) and page
64 of the Spanish translation (Táctica moderna en ajedrez,
volume two), as well as page 49 of Attack and Defence in
Modern Chess Tactics (London, 1973).

Biographical details about Gifford are still being sought. A rare
instance of his being named as ‘Birkmyre Gifford’ occurred on page
109 of the April-May 1879 issue of La Stratégie.

5164. More on Pillsbury (C.N.s 5158 &
5159)

It seems to us that the photograph of Pillsbury in the Washington
Times of 9 April 1905 (C.N. 5158) was inverted, and
therefore a reversed copy is given here:

A further passage about Pillsbury in the Washington Times
comes from page 6 of its edition of 26 June 1906, i.e. not long
after he died:

‘Horse v Chessplayer

Our highly respected and entertaining contemporary, the Wall
Street Journal, is in a parlous state because of the
relative attention paid to the deaths of Pillsbury, the chess
master, and Sysonby, the racehorse. It grieves especially
because of the part journalism played in this discrimination,
thus saying:

“The general newspapers give a column and a half and a
‘spread head’ on the first page to an account of the death of
a great thoroughbred horse. They give a half column on an
inside page to the death of America’s greatest chessplayer, of
whom it is said he was ‘one of the mental marvels of the age’.
Is a horse better than a man? Does brute strength possess more
interest than mental power?”

Even newspapers have to take things as they find them in this
world, and a newspaper man in dealing with events that he is to
lay before the people must and does take into account the things
that will be of most interest to his special public. The
constituency of a few papers doubtless had greater concern about
the passing of the brilliant chessplayer, but the large majority
of readers everywhere felt the deeper interest in the horse. It
may not be a very fine commentary on our national spirit, but it
is a fact, nevertheless. And newspapers are less molders of
public sentiment than they are molded by it.’

5165.
William Harris

From John Townsend (Wokingham, England):

‘I should like to obtain biographical facts about William
Harris, who was mentioned in your article on Alexander McDonnell. He
seems to have been unusually enthusiastic about chess, judging
from his occasional contributions to the Chess Player’s
Chronicle in its early years.

Page 159 of volume two gave his address: No. 1, Hill Street,
Richmond, Surrey. He offered to continue a correspondence game
discussed in an earlier issue, and on that same page he also
enquired about “Vida’s Poem”.’

5166. Holland v England

From page 176 of the June 1939 issue of the Tijdschrift van
den Koninklijken Nederlandschen Schaakbond:

The occasion was the match between Holland and England in the
Hague, 28-29 May 1939.

5167.
Aristocrats

From Michael McDowell (Westcliff-on-sea, England):

‘I have always understood the problem term “aristocrat” to
mean a composition featuring all 16 pieces and no pawns, but
many problemists extend the definition to cover any pawnless
problem. It seems ludicrous to me to refer to an “aristocratic
miniature”, as if there were something surprising or
meritorious in a seven-piece problem having no pawns. A
pointer to the origin of the term appears in D.J. Morgan’s
Quotes and Queries column in the June 1964 BCM (page
180), where he quotes Hermann Albrecht, in the November 1963
Problemist, naming Otto Dehler as the originator of “aristocrat”.
An illustrative problem by J.J. Togstad was given, from the Pittsburgh
Gazette-Times, 1911. Where did Dehler coin the term?’

Mate in two.

Our correspondent points out that the Togstad composition
(above), which received the second Honourable Mention, also
appeared on page 6 of Boerenschroom, M. Niemeijer’s 1965
collection of pawnless two-movers. Pages 46-47 gave eight further
‘aristocrats’, of which the earliest was by A.W. Daniel (dated
1904, but no source supplied):

Mate in two.

5168. Alekhine v Golombek

This photograph was published on page 54 of the March-April 1940
American Chess Bulletin. The reference to Rueb is rather
surprising.

5169. Alekhine smoking story

From page 35 of Famous Chess Players by Peter Morris
Lerner (Minneapolis, 1973):

‘Although Alekhine gave up smoking for the world championship,
he took up the habit again as soon as the match was completed.
One night he went to bed with a lighted cigarette and woke up
amid flames. Luckily, he was not injured.’

The following appeared on page 27 of the February 1931 American
Chess Bulletin:

The report in the Wiener Schachzeitung (on page 374 of
the December 1930 issue) was nearly 40 lines long.

5170.
James H. Taft

C.N. 64 (see pages 177-178 of Chess Explorations) showed
a victory by James H. Taft over Frank J. Marshall in New York in
1910. It was the first of five games contested, and Marshall’s
final score was +2 –1 =2. The American Chess Bulletin,
July 1910, page 172 reported that he ‘was fortunate to draw the
second game’, and we now learn from John Blackstone (Las Vegas,
NV, USA) that the moves were published in the New York Sun,
8 May 1910, third section, page 10:

An unusual mate in three was available at the end: 33 Qg6+ Kxd5
34 Rf6, etc.

5172. Lasker v Thomas

Concerning the feature article on Edward
Lasker
v
George Thomas we now note that Lasker also published the game
on pages 216-217 of the second edition of his book Schachstrategie
(Leipzig, 1914). Remarkably, this yields a ninth version of the
first nine moves: 1 d4 f5 2 Nf3 e6 3 Nc3 Nf6 4 Bg5 Be7 5 Bxf6 Bxf6 6
e4 fxe4 7 Nxe4 b6 8 Ne5 O-O 9 Bd3 Bb7. In the table of contents
(page viii) the game was mysteriously dated 1904.

The game-score was not included in Lasker’s Chess Strategy
(London, 1915), which was based on that second German edition.

Edward Lasker (front cover,
Chess Review, June 1950)

Lasker described the success of the book in an article on page 7
of the March-April 1943 issue of the Chess Correspondent:

‘I believe my book Chess Strategy, the sale of which
(between 40,000 and 50,000 copies) exceeded that of any other
chess book, achieved its success solely because for the first
time it offered the student a real theory of the game which they
could apply to any position, according to their more or less
thorough grasp of the general strategic principles explained in
the book.

I remember that in reviewing that book the great Schlechter,
with whom Emanuel Lasker had just barely drawn his match for the
world championship, called the teaching method I employed so
superior to any used previously that he hoped it would be
adopted by all future chess authors. This honor of imitation has
indeed been conferred upon me by most authors who later wrote
again on chess strategy or tactics, including Capablanca and
Nimzowitsch, the former doing it in a more superficial, the
latter in a more profound, manner. At any rate, books which
offered a theory consisting of opening collections became a
matter of past history.

The fundamental innovation I introduced was to teach judging a
position by the permanent or transitory form of the pawn
skeleton, the mobility which could be given to the various
pieces, and weighing of weak and strong points in forming all
decisions.’

5173. Steinitz and who? (C.N. 3463)

In C.N. 3463 Michael Negele (Wuppertal, Germany) raised the
subject of the above photograph. Apart from Steinitz, none of the
persons could be identified with certainty, but now our
correspondent has found an almost complete key in the Cleveland
Public Library:

Richard Forster (Zurich) informs us that the combination was
published by Henry Grob in his weekly column in the Zürcher
Illustrierte Zeitung (24/1940, page 645). White was named
as Bernhard Fleischer, but no date or place for the game was
given. Nor do we have the complete score.

5175. Gens una sumus (C.N.s 879,
942, 961 & 4364)

Information is still required on when FIDE adopted the Latin
motto Gens una sumus. As mentioned in C.N. 4364, the
earliest occurrence in print known to us is surprisingly late: FIDE
Revue, 1952.

‘The friends and chess colleagues of his [Levenfish’s] youth
had been ... Pyotr Potyomkin, poet and chessplayer, who
emigrated after the Revolution – a club named after him still
exists in Paris, and it was to Potyomkin that the International
Chess Federation was indebted for its slogan “Gens Una Sumus”
...’

Mr Wright notes that Potyomkin (or Potemkin) participated in the
unofficial FIDE Olympiad in Paris in 1924 and that he died in
1926. What more is known about his claimed connection with Genus
una sumus?

5176. Pictures of Labourdonnais (C.N.s 5128
& 5149)

Further to the comments by Staunton quoted in C.N. 5128, it may
be added that at the start of its 1842 run, in a note entitled ‘Portrait’,
Le Palamède stated that no picture of Labourdonnais had
existed and that when the master died Deville took a plaster cast
of his head. Marlet then undertook a portrait of Labourdonnais:

Pages 145-147 of the 15 March 1842 issue of Le Palamède
carried an article ‘Phrénologie’ which discussed the
characteristics of Labourdonnais’ brain. The opening paragraph
reported that copies of the bust were to be found in London chess
clubs and other haunts and that the master had been subjected to
phrenological scrutiny:

A chronology
by Dr John van Wyhe of Cambridge University records that John
Elliotson and J. DeVille were founding members of the London
Phrenological Society in 1823.

5177. Morphy

A very early appearance of the name ‘Morphy’ in a chess magazine
came on page 248 of Le Palamède, 15 May 1842. It was,
however, a reference to Ernest Morphy (Paul’s uncle). A feature on
chess in the United States mentioned the devastation caused by
yellow fever in New Orleans, and stated that Ernest Morphy (‘notre
correspondant’) was active in chess there and had sent
highly interesting material to Labourdonnais.

5178. Pawn ending (C.N. 5157)

Christian Sánchez (Rosario, Argentina) notes that the position
was ascribed to Kling and Horwitz in Carlo Salvioli’s book Il
giuoco degli scacchi. Our correspondent refers to page 546
of the third (1921) edition, and we can add that as late as 1961,
in the eighth edition (page 742), the same text stood. Mr Sánchez
points out, though, that on page 6 of Chess Studies and
End-Games by B. Horwitz and J. Kling (London, 1889) the
units were placed one file to the right:

5179. Bradley Beach, 1928

A group photograph from page 127 of the September-October 1928 American
Chess Bulletin:

5180. Gifford (C.N.s 5156 & 5163)

Peter de Jong (De Meern, the Netherlands) reports that there are
several references to H.W.B. Gifford in 150 jaar DD (The
Hague, 2005), and particularly on pages 29-31, in an article by
S.Th. Hogers and W.J.P. Vink. Gifford, an Englishman, was a member
of the DD (Discendo Discimus). He won the first unofficial Dutch
championship, in the Hague in 1873, moved to Paris in 1877 and, as
mentioned in C.N. 5156, participated in the following year’s
tournament there (defeating Anderssen). The book also notes that
Gifford was a composer. His birth and death details have yet to be
established.

5181. Two moves in succession (C.N. 3202)

C.N. 3202 (see page 281 of Chess Facts and Fables)
discussed the claim that in a game at Kemeri, 1937 Alekhine played
two moves in succession. His encounter with Vladas Mikėnas has
been mentioned in that context, but Sandro Litigio (Como, Italy)
writes:

‘An article “How I outplayed Alekhine!” by Mikėnas on pages
52-54 of the January 2006 CHESS has his detailed
comments on the game against Alekhine at Kemeri, 1937. As
Mikėnas mentions no double move, it would seem that any such
incident must have occurred in a different game.’

5182. Front page (C.N. 4444)

Mr Urcan mentions that the display was discussed, although
without the above illustration, on pages 125-141 of Thomas
Frère and the Brotherhood of Chess by Martin Frère Hillyer
(Jefferson, 2007). We recall that the picture was given on page 24
of the February 1931 American Chess Bulletin and that page
25 quoted the newspaper’s report on the game, which was played in
New York on 16 April 1879.

5183. Poetry (C.N. 4961)

In response to C.N. 4961, which invited examples of the worst
chess poems, Avital Pilpel (Haifa, Israel) mentions The Great
Pawn Hunter Chess Tutorial (subtitle: Stories, Poetry and
Games) by Manus Patrick Fealy (Bloomington and Milton Keynes,
2006). There are indeed many spectacularly unprintworthy specimens
in what is, of course, yet another ‘vanity press’ production. In
earlier, happier, days, such material might merely have been
chalked on the pavement.

5184. Gens una sumus

Harrie Grondijs (Rijswijk, the Netherlands) reports that Gens
una sumus was on the front cover of Alexander Rueb’s book De
Schaakstudie, which appeared in ten parts as from 1949:

Our correspondent also informs us that he possesses a printed
invitation from Rueb, dated Christmas 1945, to the first FIDE
Congress of the post-War period. It states:

‘... no Chessfriend should forget, that we are One Nation ...’

5185. International Chess Association

From the obituary of Arnous de Rivière in The Field, 16
September 1905:

‘Latterly his name came into prominence as the organizer of the
Monte Carlo tournaments, and he was occupied with the drafting
of a constitution for the establishment of an International
Chess Association when death overtook him.’

What more is known about that initiative?

5186. Group photograph

Below is a photograph taken during the Czech championship in
Mladá Boleslav, 1913:

Source: Časopis Českých Šachistů, 9/1913, page 140.

5187. Réti, Euwe and who?

Can any reader identify the third man in this photograph, which
comes from Aljechin-Euwe by Guus Betlem Jr (Helmond,
1936)?

5188. Ruy López and Montaigne

5189. Emanuel Lasker on the different
generations

From page 190 of Modern Chess Strategy by Edward Lasker
(London, 1951):

‘I recall a remark which Emanuel Lasker made one day as we were
discussing the characteristic differences between the older and
the younger generation of chess masters. He said modern
tournaments were much harder because the young masters played
much more exact chess than was encountered in tournaments up to
the great meeting in New York in 1924. He felt that the old
masters – Steinitz, Schlechter, Tarrasch, Teichmann, Bernstein,
etc. – had played just as deep chess as can be found in any
modern game, perhaps even deeper because they played more
slowly, but that they lacked the accuracy with which present-day
masters took advantage of the slightest positional superiority.’

5190. W. Steinitz

Further to the reference in C.N. 3156 to a twentieth-century W.
Steinitz (see page 277 of Chess Facts and Fables) Michael
McDowell (Westcliff-on-sea, England) sends the following, from
page 577 of The Problemist, May 1953:

Mr McDowell comments:

‘He was one of the strongest solvers in The
Problemist in the late 1940s and the 1950s. His last entry in
the solving ladder dates from September 1973. No obituary ever
appeared in The Problemist. In 1954 he presented a
silver cup to the British Chess Problem Society known as the
“Intermediate Cup”; it was to be awarded to the solver who
gained the highest points in a section entitled “Our Own
Composers”, which was aimed at those with little experience of
composition or solving. These days the trophy fulfils a similar
function, being awarded to the winner of the solving ladder in The
Problemist Supplement.’

5191. James Callaghan (1912-2005)

We are grateful to Lord Morgan (Oxford, England) for permission
to quote a passage from page 130 of his biography of the former
British Prime Minister, Callaghan
A Life (Oxford, 1997):

‘... Callaghan’s only hobby in the House, useful for filling in
time before trooping through the division lobby, was chess,
which he played with colleagues such as Douglas Jay, Reginald
Paget and Maurice Edelman. Michael Foot was a more dashing
performer, and the backbencher Julius Silverman perhaps the
strongest Commons player of all. Callaghan’s chess style was
unremarkable: he favoured classic openings ... such as the Ruy
López and the Sicilian Defence (though, as for many others, the
full subtleties of the latter often eluded him). He admired the
proficiency of the leading Russians, the current world champion
Mikhail Botvinnik and his successors Smyslov and Tal. It
marginally underlined his early enthusiasm for the Soviet Union.
He kept up his interest in chess throughout his life, being a
regular attender at the Hastings chess congress. He even took
part in a simultaneous contest with the then Russian world
champion Gary Kasparov in 1993, with inevitably very brief
results. A good-humoured loser, Callaghan concluded that more
intelligence was required for chess than for politics.’

A note on page 134 refers readers to pages 26-27 of the June 1990
CHESS for Lord Callaghan’s interview with Cathy Forbes.
She reproduced it on pages 141-147 of her book Meet the
Masters (Brighton, 1994). See also CHESS, April
1993, pages 4-9.

5193. Kasparyan position (C.N.s 5155 &
5163)

Christian Sánchez (Rosario, Argentina) notes that the Kasparyan
position was published as ‘Kasparyan-Manvelyan’ on page 231 of Chess
Review, November 1939. Can earlier appearances be found?

5194. Lasker sketch

From Olimpiu G. Urcan (Singapore) comes this sketch from the Sunday
Inter Ocean (Chicago) of 27 December 1896, page 20:

Our correspondent adds that the caption was ‘Lasker, the chess
expert, playing several games at the same time at the Kaiserhof,
Berlin’, it being specified that the drawing was taken from Zur
Guten Stunden.

5195. Spanish book on Morphy (C.N. 1821)

Published in 1988 by colección Ricardo Aguilera (Madrid), Morphy
su vida y 353 partidas by Benito López Esnaola claimed to be
an important work of scholarship. As noted in C.N. 1821, the
author commented in his introduction: ‘Morphy’s games have been
compiled before, but I believe that the present book breaks the
record with 353. The previous total was 300.’ The back-cover blurb
remarked that 353 was a ‘record figure’ and trumpeted López
Esnaola as ‘an excellent investigator of chess history’.

Our earlier item mentioned that such words were considerable
exaggerations. Maróczy’s book on Morphy (first published in 1909)
contained over 400 games, even though López Esnaola mentioned this
predecessor on page 26. On the other hand, he overlooked the
second series of unknown Morphy games published by David Lawson in
the BCM (September 1979), and showed no evidence of
acquaintance with Paul Morphy The Pride and Sorrow of Chess.
There were so many misspellings they could hardly be printers’
errors. Pages 18, 26 and 35 referred to the ‘Britisch Chess
Magazine’, no doubt by analogy with the ‘Britisch Chess Review’
(page 172). Staunton’ column was in the ‘Ilustration London’ (page
14), the ‘Ilustrated London News’ (pages 15, 16 and 172) and the
‘Ilustrated London’ (pages 17 and 18). Other nineteenth-century
revelations were ‘McConnel’, ‘Rouseau’, ‘La Bourdonais’,
‘Lichtenthein’, ‘Lichtentheim’, ‘Lichtenheim’, ‘Lyttleton’,
‘Lytleton’, ‘Harwitz’, ‘St Jame’s Chess Club’, ‘Ilustrated Sportin
and Dramatic News’, ‘MacDonnel’ , ‘Zukertot’ , ‘Andersen’,
‘Cuningham’, ‘Sucre’, ‘La Palamede’ and ‘Delandy’.

In addition, López Esnaola’s book concluded with six pages of
biographical notes on Morphy’s opponents. They were simply
purloined from the footnotes in Morphy’s Games of Chess by
P.W. Sergeant.

5196. Rudolph Pokorny

Our feature article The
Capablanca-Pokorny Fiasco quoted a remark about Rudolph
Pokorny from page 246 of the November 1909 American Chess
Bulletin:

‘Through Mr Louis Uedemann of Chicago we learn that the
Austro-Mexican had been a resident of that city some years ago
and was well known to chessplayers there.’

Now Jerry Spinrad (Nashville, TN, USA) quotes the following from
page 8 of the Chicago Daily Tribune, 22 November 1907:

‘Return to Find Partner Gone. Business Associates Accuse
Rudolph Pokorny of Appropriating Funds While They Are on
Vacation.

Rudolph Pokorny, former manager of the hair-dressing parlors of
Rudolph Pokorny & Co., 165 Wabash Avenue, is being sought by
his late partners, who accuse him of having absconded with some
$400. According to V. Henry, one of the partners, Pokorny, who
is a well-known chessplayer, two months ago formed the
partnership with Henry E. Rhode and T. Alfred. Henry stated that
Pokorny disappeared while the other partners were absent on a
trip.’

Our correspondent comments:

‘Thus he is the same Rudolph Pokorny who was given to
ridiculous puffery for his hair-styling in a Tribune
article of 17 June 1906. Any doubt that the Chicago Pokorny
and the Mexican Pokorny are the same is dispelled by
Uedemann’s column of 1 August 1909; along with his challenge
to Capablanca, Pokorny challenged his old Chicago club to a
correspondence match.

Both “Rudolf” and “Rudolph” were used in advertisements for
Pokorny’s hair salon. Strangely, the only mention I have of a
Pokorny in Chicago chess (no first name is given) is in
Uedemann’s column of 8 December 1907, which said that he had
played in a consultation match the previous Monday. This would
seem odd, since it would put him in public in Chicago after he
absconded with the money.

The New York Sun of 24 October 1909, third section,
page 8, gave Pokorny’s occupation as an importer of French
tonics in its discussion of the Capablanca challenge.’

5197. Réti, Euwe and who? (C.N. 5187)

Peter de Jong (De Meern, the Netherlands) suggests – and we
believe him to be correct – that the person standing is Willem
Schelfhout (1874-1951). Below is a photograph published on page
136 of the February 1951 Tijdschrift van de Koninklijke
Nederlandse Schaakbond:

Willem Andreas Theodorus
Schelfhout

5198. Front page (C.N.s 4444 & 5186)

For Leonard Barden’s account of the episode, see pages 26-27 of CHESS,
November 1997.

5199. Lasker v Janowsky, Paris, 1909

We summarize the
proof that the match in Paris between Lasker and Janowsky in
autumn 1909 (won by Lasker +7 –1 =2) was not for the world
championship. First, an extract from a letter that we contributed
on pages 305-306 of the July 1985 BCM:

‘A check of all major chess periodicals for 1909 at the Royal
Library at the Hague reveals that:

a) In many magazines the idea of the match being for the
world championship is simply not mentioned (e.g. BCM
pages 483 and 543).

b) Others are specific that the title was not at stake (e.g.
Deutsches Wochenschach und Berliner Schachzeitung page
382, Tijdschrift van den Nederlandschen Schaakbond
page 253). The match was played in Paris, so it is no surprise
that French-language magazines are especially precise in
refuting any world championship connection (e.g. La
Stratégie pages 352 and 407, and Revue d’échecs
page 214).

c) Not a single contemporary magazine has been found that
suggests the match was for the world crown.’

Further details were given in C.N. 2471 (see page 174 of A
Chess Omnibus), as reproduced below.

On 15 September 1909 Lasker and Schlechter issued a joint
announcement (from Berlin and Vienna) of their intention to play
a world championship match during the coming winter. The text
was published in the Wiener Schachzeitung, September
1909 (page 315) and the Deutsche Schachblätter, 3
October 1909 (page 85). Not surprisingly, therefore,
contemporary magazines did not suggest that the ten-game
Lasker-Janowsky encounter played from 19 October to 9 November
1909 was for the world title, and some (especially the French
ones) specifically stipulated that it was not. Page 214 of the
1909 Revue d’échecs said that it was merely ‘un
second duel courtois’. Page 352 of the October 1909 La
Stratégie observed that because of the Lasker-Schlechter
agreement Janowsky would have to wait for a title match until
afterwards. In its November 1909 issue (page 407) La
Stratégie reported that Janowsky was not discouraged by
his heavy loss to Lasker in Paris and added: ‘we understand that
fresh discussions are already under way between the same players
for another, more important, match, one which will count for the
world championship, subject, naturally, to the Champion’s
victory in his forthcoming match against Schlechter.’

On pages 60-61 of the February 1910 La Stratégie
[reproduced below] it was reiterated that Lasker and Janowsky
had not played for the title in Paris, and the magazine
published the full text of an agreement signed by the two
masters in the French capital on 12 November 1909. This was for
a match that would begin in October or November 1910, and clause
15 stated: ‘The match shall be for the championship of the
world. If Dr E. Lasker loses his title in his forthcoming match
with Schlechter, the entire present arrangement shall,
naturally, be void.’

Lasker survived against Schlechter, and in Berlin on 8 November
1910 there duly began the one and only world championship match
between Lasker and Janowsky.